


Different Seasons

by aura218



Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: 5+1 Things, Drama, Dramedy, F/M, Family Drama, Gen, M/M, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Prompt Fic, Slice of Life, women's fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-20
Updated: 2012-09-20
Packaged: 2017-11-14 15:37:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/516895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aura218/pseuds/aura218
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All the Carolyns she has been, and all the Arthurs she raised him to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1981

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for the prompt [here](http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/6034.html?thread=9538450#cmt9538450) requesting "Five times Carolyn called Arthur something like 'light of my life' sarcastically, and one time she said it with complete sincerity."
> 
> Originally posted under the subject heading "mother and son." Revised and reposted here.

Carolyn snapped off the radio. Was it really necessary to play nonstop carols on 29th December? Christmas was _over_ , time for everyone to give up their manufactured good will t'wards men and take down their tacky fairy lights. 

"Can barely see in this," Gordon, driving the car, said. "Lookit these idiots. Pick a lane, arsehole!" 

Carolyn closed her eyes and tried to ignore the choir of discordant horns.

In the backseat, Ruth helpfully volunteered, "She's needing a heating bottle! Gordon, when we get home, fill up the heating bottle for her. A lady in her condition shouldn't even been out in this weather. You're like to pop from the chill alone."

Carolyn massaged her forehead with her cold fingertips and didn't bother to voice the fifty obstetrical arguments Dr. Spock had with her sister's appalling advice. In none months, there was nothing left to say.

"Settle down, Ruthie," Gordon grumbled. The traffic light flicked to red and Gordon's heavy foot slammed the break like he was squashing a grapefruit. Carolyn slid forward in her seat. Alarmed, she grabbed the luggage loop inside the door handle. 

"Dammit, Gordon, will you watch the ice!" she snapped for the third time. She suppressed a burp as little Gordon Jr. or Jennifer explored her duodenum with his or her tiny feet.

"Calm down," Gordon said. He snapped the radio back on. Lena Horne: 'What're You Doing New Year's Eve.' "I'll wager you've been crossin' your legs out of spite."

"Yes, _dear_ , I am so enjoying two bonus weeks of pregnancy --"

Ruth draped her arm over Carolyn's seat, patting Baby Shappey. Carolyn delicately conducted Ruth's arm to her own personal space.

 

Ruth chirped, "Now, Carol, don't snap at poor Gordon. It'll all be over soon. And then you'll see for yourself that that baby is the light of your life."  
  
Carolyn would have rolled her eyes if the gesture wouldn't have induced another migraine. This plot seemed like such a good idea at the start. A family. A little girl to raise right, not like she'd been raised. But if they were cracking under the pressure of the pregnancy, what would a baby do to them?  
  
Her biggest secret from Gordon was that she was terrified of the thing growing inside of her.   
  
 _Light of my life_ , she thought.  _More like a powder keg_.


	2. 1984

Carolyn was coming in from the hairdresser's when Gordon called. Over the past week, she had acquired the ability to intuit his ring and increasingly felt a Pavlovian disappointment/relief response each time he rang. She set down her handbag, released Arthur to Mrs. Baker, and picked up the hall telephone. She could hear the lies in his voice.

He was still in meetings and had to stay over tonight. Maybe a few more nights. He'd make it up to her. It was for all of them, Caro, wasn't it? He was the one making the money here, and don't you forget it. Anyway, wasn't she getting a bit on in years to care about Valentines Day? Carolyn apologized for criticizing his methods and hung up the phone.

Mrs. Baker was helping Arthur out of his wellies. He looked up at her with his big, brown eyes. Gordon's eyes.

"Arthur, stop sucking your fingers," she said.

Arthur shoved his hands into his lap. Carolyn winced. She hadn't meant to snap. Must she let that tone Gordon hated into her voice, the shrill, demanding, mummish timbre? She could see what he meant about her sometimes.

Mrs. Baker pulled the boots off Arthur's feet with two efficient tugs and put them in the closet, not waiting for the toddler to do it himself. While she led Arthur upstairs to the nursery, Carolyn went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

I used to go dancing, she thought. I can speak three languages. I've received oral sex at 31,000 feet. Now . . . I decorate a monstrously large, modern house.

~*~

A half hour later, calmer, Carolyn went upstairs. She almost knocked on the nursery door. Preposterous. She slipped in and dismissed Mrs. Baker to do whatever she did when she wasn't needed.

Arthur was playing with the tin army men Gordon had brought him back from Germany. They clacked on the wood floor as he stood them in a loose, random formation.

Carolyn set her tea on the child's sized wooden desk. She sat beside Arthur on the hooked Peter Rabbit rug that her friend Mitzie had made him for his first birthday. His left fist was, as usual, buried in the bunny's fuzzy cotton tail. Arthur was such a tactile child, always touching and frequently licking things. He craved new sensations.

Carolyn ran her fingers through his blonde, tangled hair. He ignored her, fixated on his metal men. Maybe she could give him a clipping if he sat still after bathtime tonight. His hair fell in soft curls at the back of his neck and in front of his eyes, around his ears. He appeared a parody of study at the moment, brows drawn, chubby red cheeks huffing. She couldn't understand his solders' chatter, but he did.

Gordon thought there was something wrong with him. It was true that Arthur had never crawled, just went from lying on the floor until one day he got up, walked on new-foal legs to the table, and stole a biscuit while all the adults in the room gawped. (Then he fell back onto his bottom and cried, as if so much accomplishment in one day frightened him.) The doctor said Arthur knew fewer words than the average two and a half year old, but the ones he did know he used so joyfully. He smiled. He looked into your eyes when you spoke to him. He was always watching, observing. There was an Arthur in that funny head, just waiting to tell them who he was.

"Do you want me to read you a story, dear heart?" she said.

Arthur ignored her, which she had learned was his way of politely saying 'no.' Gordon shouted when he used the typical toddler's method of dissent. Gordon didn't have much control over his frustration, but he was working on controlling his temper.

Carolyn gently fixed Arthur's twisted, spit-damp overall buckles. He leaned into her touch. She could only see the crown of his head, bowed over the toy soldiers. The war seemed to have reached a point of treaty negotiation -- or they were planning their attack.

Carolyn kicked off her moccasins and shifted on the rug to Arthur's side. He leaned against her side, propping his chubby elbow on her thigh.

He peered up at her. "Daddy?"

"He'll be home in a few days. What's this soldier's job?" She pinged her pink-varnished fingernail off the helmet of a random infantryman.

Arthur lined up the soldiers on her shin. She expected him to smack them off again, as he did sometimes because he liked the sound of the tin against the floor. But instead, he draped himself over her skirt and listlessly poked at them. (He was probably tired from shopping, she thought hopefully. Mrs. Baker would call them for supper soon.) Carolyn took a sip of her tea. Instantly, like a poorly trained cat, Arthur was in her lap, his nose at the mug.

"I want," he said.

"It's hot." She pulled it away.

"Mine." He reached for the mug.

"Such thievery. Tea is for mummies. Play with your soldiers."

Arthur whined in his throat, that noise she hated, and slumped against her. Oh, goodness. A tantrum over tea. She tried, one-handed, to head it off.

"Arthur -- darling -- light of my life. Calm down."

He was still doing this -- "regression" thing. It had started . . . well. It wasn't his fault, was it? Children get frightened by loud noises. It started just before she strongly encouraged Gordon to go on your business trip and think long and hard about ever coming back. She set down the tea and pulled Arthur fully into her lap. He ignored the tea and hugged her neck. Warm, fussy toddler. She had a sticky, hot soldier and his prickly bazooka-thing jabbing the base of her skull.

"Mummy?"

Carolyn groped at Arthur's bookshelf until her fingers snagged a slim, hardback picture book. Distraction. The Snowy Day. Impressionist, blurry pictures, not many words. A story told in the dreamy, half-comprehending manner her son must interpret the world.

"I'm right here, darling. Let's look at the pictures. Do you see the little girl? I wonder where she and her mummy are going today."

Arthur stuck his fingers in his mouth. He looked at the pictures.


	3. 1990

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> something light . . .

"Mum?" As she flipped the pancake, Arthur suddenly appeared at her elbow. 

"Arthur! How many times have I told you, if you stand behind me in the kitchen, one of these days I will cook you."

"Yeahhh, and then eat me up." She could hear his smile in his voice.

"Correct. Because little boys are tasty and meat is expensive. What do you want?"

"You said you're coming to church with me and dad? Only --"

"Dad and me."

"Dad and me. Only there's a pancake race where all the mums run down the church lawn flipping pancakes? And I thought since you like making pancakes and you know how to run maybe -- maybe do you think you'd like to be in the pancake race? Because that would be brilliant!"

Carolyn fought to keep her expression neutral as she slid the thin pancake onto the plate. Arthur snatched it. She let him load it with berries and Nutella and whipped cream and shaved chocolate and then disappear into the pantry for whatever else he thought sounded good. Shrove Tuesday was once a year and he was shooting up since he started football at the local club.

"Dear heart, why do you think that would be the least bit of fun for your old mum?" She added another pancake and a few more berries to his plate. He could have the toppings, but she'd be damned if that's all he ate.

"You're not old!" he cried from inside the cupboard. "But, because it's cooking combined with running! Only Superman can do that! And you're a mum!"

Carolyn poured the batter for her own pancake. "I suspect you greatly overestimate my superpowers."

Arthur appeared, holding an armload of jars. One was his grandmother's tomato pickle. "The reverend is also going to throw a giant pancake the size of a pizza over a really tall line and all the kids get to run at it! Best church day ever!"

She took the pickle and put it back. "Sounds delish, pancake a la foot. Have you decided what you're giving up for Lent?"

He nodded. "Yes! This year. It'll be a real challenge, Mum. I'll need your help. This year -- you won't believe it!"

"Arthur, light of my life --"

"I'm giving up losing at the second-to-last board in Mario. Get it? I have to beat the game or else God will kill me or turn me into a snail or something. Isn't that great?"

Carolyn poured a thin spiral of golden syrup on her pancake. "Eat your concoction, Arthur."


	4. 1996

"It's the kind of thing that would happen at Christmas," Ruth said in that tone she used when she thought she was going to be quoted one day. "I mean, it isn't Christmas, but we're all dressed so nice and we had a big meal. So it's a bit like Christmas."  
  
"Ruth. Please do us a kindness and shut up." This was said by Mum.  
  
Carolyn censored her laughter behind her handkerchief. Someone's handkerchief. It had been pressed into her hand when she'd bolted from the dining room after the -- the 'to-do.'  
  
"I'm not saying anything," Ruth said. "These things happen, I suppose. I don't know why they seem to happen to us Knapp women so often -- Carolyn in particular."  
  
Carolyn could have torn her sister's hair out. Instead she traced the handkerchief's scalloped pink edging with her fingernail. Its owner had cross-stitched a rabbit in the corner. It was pale blue and she was meant to believe it had allowed a human to decorate its throat with a plump bow. She suspected the handicrafter didn't know that bunnies at Easter were pagan.  
  
Predictably, Mum and Ruth started going at it. Who ought to know her place, who had better watch herself if she didn't want to end up in the kind of  _home_  they show on the news. How scripted.  
  
Oh, this house. How she'd fought to get away from it. This had been their baby brother's room, the one who died before Carolyn was born. Ruth claimed she remembered him, but she had been practically an infant herself. The room was left blue for most of Carolyn's childhood until Mum and Dad turned it into a sewing room. Now it was ecru, Mum didn't sew, and Dad crowded his bowling trophies all over the trestle-top, antique Singer. And so it goes. It smelled the same as the spice bottles Mum had bought, once, in the 80s, and never used again. Dry, dead, powdery flavors.  
  
"He's a right bastard," Mum said, "doing it here in front of the family."  
  
"He is at that," Carolyn said.  
  
"And in front of the children -- not to mention his son," Ruth added.  
  
"Honestly, I'm glad it's over." Carolyn folded the handkerchief. "It's not as if Arthur was ignorant of our problems, he's not a child."  
  
A heavy hand rapped at the door. Mum started.   
  
"Who could that be?" Ruth sounded ready to fight off any interlopers.  
  
"Come in, Arthur," Carolyn called.  
  
Arthur hesitated in the doorway. He stood ungainly, all feet and hands, big eyes and ears, and a soft middle. He wore his own body like it was someone else's. It had taken an argument to get him to put on something other than his comfortable, safe, big  _X Files_  t-shirt that he thought made him look cool. Carolyn had conceded the blue-jeans, as long as he pulled them up over his underpants.   
  
"Um?" he said. "Sorry? I didn't mean to interrupt, only . . . ?" He bit his lip, glancing at his aunt, whom he didn't know very well. To that, he only knew his gran by birthday cards in the mail. "I can leave you alone if you want?"  
  
Carolyn set aside the handkerchief and held out an open hand to her son. Her mother made a tactful retreat. She forced Ruth to also make her retreat, and to make it a tactful one, thank God. Arthur flickered fragile smiles at both of them. In the quiet room, Carolyn opened the window to let in the green, spring air. The kids were still hunting eggs in the small garden next door. Violets poked up Mum's flower beds. She turned to Arthur.  
  
"What's new, my love?"  
  
Arthur giggled -- a silly, bubbly sound -- and nearly attacked her. She stumbled, but he held on in his orangutan grip. He was tall enough now to notch his chin onto her shoulder and she didn't know who was comforting whom. She just held him and ruffled his dark hair.   
  
"I was worried about you, Mum."  
  
Her sweet boy. "I'm fine, dear heart."  
  
He kissed her, clumsily, on her cheek. "I really love you."  
  
"I really love you, too."  
  
"Dad was horrible. Why was he horrible? You're brilliant! Usually. Except sometimes you get upset but --"  
  
Carolyn held him at arm's length. He sat on the guest bed and shut up under the power of her Serious Face. She sat beside him.  
  
"Arthur, what happened between your father and me is none of your concern. I realize that's a bit preposterous, considering you had a front row seat to the rise and fall of our great and sullied empire. Not to mention the  _finale ultimo_  that was the last, great battle --"  
  
"So that's really it?" Arthur said.  
  
She blinked. She thought he understood. "Dear heart, you yourself just said -- Arthur, your father and I have filed for divorce. I realize now it was foolish to put off telling the greater family until things were more final, but I thought you understood -- oh!"  
  
Arthur pitched forward and landed face-front in her lap. His whole body shook. He was sobbing.   
  
"Oh, for goodness' sake. Arthur, you knew your father had a separate apartment." A separate girlfriend, even. And a shih-zhu.   
  
Arthur's big hands fisted in the fabric of her sensible linen trousers. He was making a puddle. The handkerchief was out of reach.   
  
"I know," he said. "But -- I -- I'm  _happy_ , Mum. When he shouted at you and Gran and then Uncle Tommy tried to hit him, I -- I thought -- I wanted to go away."  
  
Carolyn rubbed his back in a circle, skritching with her nails through his shirt.  
  
"I'm  _glad_  he's gone. I  _hate him_."  
  
Carolyn bit her lip. One part of her, the well brought up shopkeeper's daughter, said that he was Arthur's _father_. But the happily divorced wife said he was  _Gordon_ , who had done nasty, cowardly, pathetic things that Arthur didn't even know about.  
  
"'Hate' is a very strong word," she said. "You should only use it when you really mean it."  
  
"I mean it a lot. I don't care if it makes me horrible. Because -- because I'm his son and he's horrible so if I'm horrible too, then -- then that's fine! We're both horrible but I'm less horrible because at least I know I am."  
  
Carolyn fought her smile. Oh, fourteen. "Arthur. Light of my life. You do take to the extremes of emotion. I don't know where you get it from."  
  
He sat up, wiping at his face. He looked like a blotchy snot monster, all of three years old and just in from playing in the snow, save for the constellations of spots on his chin and forehead. She reached for the handkerchief and handed it to him. He blew his nose noisily. Then he frowned at the cloth.  
  
"This hankie is pre-dampened, Mum."  
  
"It's fine, Arthur. Wipe up your lip."  
  
He did. 


	5. 1999

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mild drug use.

Carolyn snagged a raspberry cocktail from a passing fairy-decked waitress's tray. She plucked out the prickly, glittering swizzle stick and thrust it through a nearby rose blossom. The clubhouse patio was lousy with roses twisted in bunches, sprays, wreaths -- even a bower for photo ops. They had turned on the fairy lights when the sun went down, which were pretty enough, but the candles added to the sticky heat and her head was pounding.   
  
Where was Arthur? If that boy had gone down to the lake again to catch the bullfrogs . . . Carolyn fought to hold her tongue as one more fully grown woman batted all she passed by with the fairy wings she apparently forgotten she'd strung to her own back. 

Some fool had caught notice of her. She pretended not to see him as she posed amid the verbena. He'd come in costume -- leather breeches, an open jerkin, and a leather thong. She tried to see the medallion, but it peeked out of view, behind the leather, hiding against the shadows of his perfectly acceptable chest. Twin ram's horns poked through his hair. He was tall with dark, flippy hair, nice hands, and he sent her a smile she didn't trust.

  
"I can't help wonder why a beautiful creature sits alone in maiden meditation, fancy-free," he said. The gentleman was younger than he looked, too young, but then, since she'd passed fifty, the young were getting old enough to be old enough.   
  
She indicated his get-up with her drink. "And what are you supposed to be?"   
  
The man leaned against the trellis, blocking her in with his long legs crossed at the ankle. "Oh, just a passing Midsummer hob. And you, dear Titania? We've met by moonlight, but I haven't caught your name."  
  
"That's because I never dropped it."  
  
"Then I'll have to pluck it from your breast." His dark eyes danced.  
  
"Wouldn't your cloven hoof just love to try," she said.  
  
"Perhaps my flesh-full hand --" he extended it -- "could take up yours. And we could take a strill in the direction of that canopy over there."  
  
"For what purpose?" 

"My dear, I have dancing shoes with nimble toes -- so I may lift your soul of lead."

 

~*~

 

Bullfrogs sang in the darkness. Across the lake, the fairy lights from the party cast long smears of yellow light on the water. The boat house was starting to smell mossy. Someone nudged Arthur's shoulder and tipped the pipe and lighter into his hand. He fumbled the stem as he tried to light it. He couldn't get the green bits inside the bowl to light up orange very much when he inhaled.

"I hate my mum," Tilly said.

"Doesn't everyone hate their parents?" Jason said.  
  
"'Hate' is a -- it's . . . it's." Arthur had a point. It was there, behind the smoke in his brain. "I mean, everyone can have little bits of themselves that are bad and little bits that are brilliant. Don't they?"  
  
"Whoa," Jason said. "That's like.  _Deep_ , Arthur, man."   
  
Arthur's new friends were so cool.

  
~*~

  
Carolyn and Ian had married at nineteen and lived over his mother's garage in a drafty one-room bedsit. All they had was each other and a lot of sex on their lumpy, second-hand mattress. He attended uni and she supported them as an air hostie. When his mum died, she stupidly took him home where Ruth got her hooks in him and naturally, her awful family ruined everything.

Gordon seemed the sensible replacement. She couldn't live with her parents at almost thirty, couldn't be single in a small town. Arthur made Gordon bearable, practical -- a marriage with a child had a goal. 

For years, it was baby hands at her legs and Gordon's words laying down sandbags on her soul. She watched the scale tip and didn't care, even as Ruth stayed slim, if only because she liked that weight meant a wearable privacy shield. The few scant inches between herself and the world of men and children were hers alone.  
  
Now Arthur was his own person and the house rang silent most days. So maybe it wasn't such an embarrassing grasp at girlhood to call up Mitzie -- to say yes to this young people's Midsummer bonfire at Mitzie's club. She never could have imagined she'd find herself led around the dance floor by a man at least ten years younger than herself, who dribbled Shakespeare like a leaky bookshelf.  
  
"Do you only speak with the tongue of angels, Mister -- ?" The silly boy never even gave his name. She leaned back to look up at him. His jerkin smelled wild as the woods.   
  
"Richardson. Call me Douglas." Her dance partner bowed gracefully and kissed her hand.  
  
"Oh, for pity's sake." She stepped back into the circle of his arms. She felt small with him. She trusted he knew where to lead. Most men didn't. "We're not actually on Avalon, you know. You've gotten my interest so you can put a pin in the play acting."

"The lady opts for honesty."  Douglas's arm around her tucked her securely against his chest.  
  
"She prefers less masks, more baldfaces, yes. You still haven't sussed out my name."  
  
"But I know your name, Miss Carolyn Knapp-Shappey."  
  
"Did your research, did you?"  
  
Douglas shrugged, all innocent boyishness. She realized she had been playing with the hair that brushed his collar. She put her hand on his shoulder instead.  
  
"I did a bit of asking around. Is your son with you tonight?"  
  
"Oh, I saw him take off with some other children. Probably visiting the horses, he fancies he can whisper at them. We're holding out he goes to veterinary school. Do you have children?"  
  
Douglas shook his head. "None living."  
  
A stab of pain clenched her heart. A parent's worst fear. "I'm sorry."  
  
They danced. The singer made a mess of the familiar, well played soul song: _"No summer's high, no warm July . . ."_  
  
"I like this song," Carolyn said.   
  
"Mm, me too. Otis Redding?"  
  
She scoffed. "Stevie Wonder. It was the first pop song Arthur learned to sing off the radio, because it's -- it sort of --" She didn't know how to finish, she never had music lessons.  
  
"It's a predictable rhyming scheme," Douglas said, clearly listening to the lyrics. "Each stanza works the ballad through the calendar. It's sort of pagan, in the way the Celts viewed the year as a wheel and each holiday symbolized an important life event. Except, this song suggests a world in which these life markers never happened. And where would we be, then?"  
  
Not merely a memorizer of great works, then, Carolyn mused.   
  
"I suppose," she said, "we'd be older but never much wiser."  
  
"Point taken," he said. "To add another layer, in the refrain, the singer seems located beyond the physical plane and is calling out to his love to bring him back."

The song ended. They moved to the bar, where Douglas ordered them both G&Ts.

"If it's all the same to you," he said, "I think I'd prefer to remain immortal."

 

 ~*~

 

After the pipe, there was whiskey. Whiskey was brilliant! Jason went out to watch the bonfire on the lake, so Tilly took Arthur back to the boathouse. And! They started doing the kissing things Arthur had been hoping for and then! Sex was brilliant! He wanted do it some more but she only had one condom, so they did some other things! Best Midsummer ever! Tilly was brilliant!  
  
Then they put their clothes back on and went to find Jason. He was sitting on the end of the dock with his feet in his sneakers and his sneakers in the water. He asked for the pipe. Arthur didn't know why he sounded upset, but he gave it to him.  
  
Jason smoked the rest of the stuff out of it. "What were you doing in there?"  
  
Tilly didn't answer. Arthur didn't think it was polite to say. He was really happy, so instead of talking he watched the bonfire out on the lake and wondered, how did the fire not burn the thing it was floating on? It was pretty and also scary, so big and really close. He could hear the grown-ups at the party laughing and the music. Arthur knew the song about the holidays so he sang it -- and then Tilly was singing it too! But Jason told them to shut up.  
  
Arthur said sorry.  
  
Jason paced the dock. The vibration of his feet made the edges of Arthur's eyes thrum like speakers when you turned the volume up. Jason reared his arm back like a cricket batter, like a cobra, and flung something into the lake. Arthur didn't see it fly, but he heard the plop. Wasn't that weird, that it was water, but it wasn't, because it was so black it like, wasn't even there?  
  
"Hey!" Tilly shouted. She started to pull off her dress and kick off her sneakers. Arthur grabbed her legs.   
  
"It's dark," Arthur said. "We can get it tomorrow. It won't get hurt in the water."  
  
"I want my pipe!" she said.  
  
"I know -- but -- there's lake fire out there!"  
  
Tilly thumped cross-legged onto the deck boards. "You're an arsehole, Jason."  
  
Arthur's eyes were starting to feel gummy. He thought he might throw up.  
  
Jason stomped towards shore. "Fuckin' whore," he muttered into the night.  
  
And she was off. Arthur watched, not sure why Jason was throwing things or why Tilly leaped onto Jason's back. They were shouting. He should get up. He should protect his new girlfriend, or whatever she was. He should probably apologize to Jason, his sort-of new and former friend, for whatever he did that made him so angry.   
  
When Jason pushed Tilly against the wall of the glass conservatory, and Tilly grabbed a brick and held it up threateningly, Arthur decided he would like to never ever smoke things in boathouses again.

 

~*~

  
"It's the dullness that gets to a person, honestly," Carolyn was saying into her second gin and tonic. "Arthur -- light of my life though he is -- doesn't need keeping after anymore. Well, he needs a maid, a cook, a chauffeur, a tutor, and a drill sergeant, but soon he'll be at university and he's got to figure out how to do for himself."  
  
Douglas, legs crossed toward her on the garden bench, chuckled. "I didn't unravel the mysteries of the clothes washer until my first wife grew so pregnant she couldn't reach the dials. Or simply refused to."  
  
"And yet you say she left you."  
  
Douglas shrugged. "I was young. We all learn as we go. So what have you been doing with that private jet he left you?"  
  
"I'm not doing anything with it. I certainly don't need it."  
  
Douglas gawped at her, and her suspicions were clinched.  
  
"Are you just letting it sit in a hangar?" he asked.  
  
"Of course not." She gestured with her drink in vague concern to the stupidly rich party goers. "It's leased to a multinational corporation for use by their CEO and his band of revolting cronies. I only hope when I get it back it isn't crusted over in champagne, tobacco tar, and rented effluvia."  
  
"They say baking soda gets that out."   
  
"So they say."  
  
She tipped back the last of her drink and reached over Douglas to discarded her glass on the flower bed runner. She let him catch her hand, hold it in his, trace her tennis bracelet atop her wrist. Oh, ho, he did know the little scintillating things that made a woman's senses hum. She turned to face him head-on, legs crossed to press their knees together. She thought of Kate and Joan and Bette.   
  
"And where do you work?" She finally pressed his hand.  
  
His smile went crooked, soft brown eyes gone sly. "I'm a captain at Air England."  
  
She wasn't expecting that. A licensed pilot, obviously. But his charming smarm had notes similar to the mating call of a business man looking for a new toy.   
  
"I -- see," she said. "You fly planes for a living, so you want to buy one to pop around in on your days off?"  
  
He blinked at her. He set his drink down. "Darling, I think we're got our wires crossed."  
  
She _loathed_ when men with money called her  _'darling'_. Carolyn flicked his fingertips from her wrist.  
  
"Listen, you puffy satyr, whom do you think you are fooling? You couldn't possibly afford to buy and maintain a private jet on a pilot's salary. If not for my plane, why have you been chatting me up?"  
  
His mouth moved, but she wasn't in the mood for another chess move. Carolyn collected her clutch and left him gaping at her on the garden bench. It wasn't as if she was _silly_ enough to imagine he was _flirting_ with her, but to lie about his intentions when asked plainly? Straight to her face, like she was some trophy wife too stupid to know what to do with her ex's fortune? Typical. They sniff a woman who's been left, alone, with assets, and they rush in like pack wolves to "help" her sort herself. Douglas Richardson hadn't been the first.   
  
The party guests were crowding the steps of the patio to watch the conflagration on the lake. Fairies and hobs, women in summer dresses, kids in costumes, a thick press of people clogged the exit. Oh, where was Arthur? She'd never find him if he'd gone gallivanting. Party streamers crunched under her heels as she edged the crowd. Douglas huffed along behind her, that silly jerkin slapping like a porno. The man must never exercise.  
  
"Carolyn."   
  
He placed a hand on her shoulder. She removed it with her fingernails. He winced.   
  
He said, "Can't a man simply talk to a charming, intelligent woman about her life without agenda?"  
  
She dug in her clutch for her keys. "Put on a different record, Douglas, that one won't play." Valet. She'd given up the entire keyring so her clutch wouldn't jingle.  
  
"Okay," Douglas said. "Cards on the table. I swear to all that's holy, I was enjoying every moment we spent together tonight. You're beautiful and brilliant."  
  
She looked at him. He was sincere. She waited.  
  
"But you're correct in that I had another reason to approach you tonight."  
  
Carolyn started walking, but Douglas danced in front of her.  
  
"I  _initially_  wanted to speak with you about going into business for yourself." He whipped a business card out his jerkin so quickly, it might have been spring loaded. "Listen, you've got the plane, I can fly it. We're a match made in heaven. Obviously you're a bit  _emotional_  right now --"  
  
Carolyn stuffed the card in her clutch. "Mr. Richardson, if you want to get on my good side, you can help me locate my son. You'll recognize him as a seventeen year old clot, wearing the exact same dopey expression as you've had on your face for the past hour."  
  
That arrogant, crooked smile came back. "Certainly, my dear. I shall look over bush, over briar, over park, over pale --"  
  
" _Mister_ Richardson."  
  
"Oh look, I think he's over there."  
  
"Come again?"

  
~*~

 

Three broken conservatory windows. One broken finger, probably. One sobbing girl. Two sets of enraged, wealthy parents. A flat of scattered, imported seedlings.   
  
And an Arthur cowering under the pear tree.  
  
When security found three intoxicated teenagers brawling amongst destroyed property, they were inclined to call the police, but Arthur's friend Tilly talked fast. (Experienced at talking her way out of trouble, that one.) She dropped the golden phrases: "my father" and "board member," so the beefy guards graciously chose to ferry the bloodied, semi-contrite adolescents by golf cart to the clubhouse. Where their parents had been reveling by firelight. Carolyn thought she had read this scene in a novel by a Beat Generation writer.  
  
Douglas was speaking with her son quietly while she attempted to dismiss Jason's father, who spit when he really worked up a head of foam. He wanted to express his scientific conclusions about single parentage and tendencies toward violence. In her head, Carolyn was playing field hockey with his testicles. It was all she could do to keep the red from filling her field of vision.   
  
" _If you are quite finished_ ," she said. "Perhaps it's time you go see what your wife has been shouting at your son -- who, despite technically being gifted with two parents, struck a girl tonight because she rejected him. Meanwhile, I should like to have a chance to  _speak with_  my own son, who, by all accounts, was shoved through a window by your son when he leapt to said young lady's defense."  
  
Carolyn ignored the accusations hurled at her from both of Jason's parents. Horrid little snot. She was still too drunk for this.  
  
"Wow, thanks, Mum," Arthur said.  
  
"Are you intoxicated?" she hissed at him as she grabbed him in the squishy part of the elbow and led him away. Douglas followed them.  
  
"Yes," he said. "And I smoked reefer. I'm sorry. Also I had sex for the first time. With Tilly, not Jason. We used a condom. I don't think I should be in trouble for sex. But definitely for the reefer and the fighting and probably also maybe the drinking even though lots of kids my age do that a lot."  
  
She heard Douglas behind her, choking off a chortle.   
  
"I see you had quite an evening."  
  
"Classic, really," Douglas piped up.  
  
"I don't think Tilly is actually my girlfriend," Arthur said. "I'm a bit confused."  
  
Carolyn loosened her death grip on his ulnar nerve cluster. "Oh, Arthur. We most definitely need to talk when you sober up. Are you injured?"  
  
"I believe the boy is feeling no pain," Douglas said. "Someone must have been looking out for him -- he managed to go through that conservatory window without a nick on him."  
  
Carolyn closed her eyes. "Douglas. You are still present. We have located my son. Viz: my son. I thank you for this evening's . . . theater games, but your professional talents are no longer required."  
  
Douglas, apparently impossible to offend, shook her hand. "Come now, we had a fine old night, didn't we? You'll keep my card, I hope."  
  
Arthur watched the exchange with observant, bloodshot eyes.  
  
Carolyn handed the valet driver her ticket. "Why would I do that?"  
  
"Well. Seems to me this has been the most exciting night of recent memory. Are you really going to go back to that large, empty house and find some way to pass the time, when you could be flying around the world with me?"  
  
Carolyn shoved her son into the car. "Arthur," she said, "why don't you pull around to the end of the lane? I'll meet you."  
  
"Right-o!"  
  
"He's high," Douglas protested.  
  
"Shut up," Carolyn said.   
  
She grabbed Douglas by that stupid jerkin, yanked him down, and kissed his smirking mouth. He held her at her waist -- and kissed her back. She knew he would -- sort of knew. Was glad she guessed right. He tried to deepen the kiss, but she met him first, pushing into his mouth, controlling him. She buried her fingers in that thick hair and pressed against his bare chest. His thighs in their leather trousers moved against hers in her thin cotton dress.  
  
When she released him, he looked a bit dazed.  
  
"I will never, ever call you," she said.   
  
She walked to the car before he could catch her grin.


	6. 2013

If anyone asked, this was all Arthur's idea.   
  
"She said she didn't want a big wedding," Herc explained as he helped the bartender heft crates of dry ice into the plastic cauldrons. "I certainly didn't see reason to invite five hundred of my closest friends after the six-swan affair my third wife threw. Between the two of us, we've patronized more flower shops than requisite to honor a a dozen gunned down mafia dons."  
  
In the bride room, Mitzie buttoned Carolyn into her costume while Carolyn's mother dozed in the wheelchair procured for the occasion.  
  
"Halloween was just a coincidence," Carolyn said. "It was the only night the club's manager would rent to us on short notice. But once Arthur heard of it, we couldn't keep him off the idea of dressing up."  
  
"People will certainly remember it, won't they?" Mitzie said. "No one says weddings are memorable anymore, but isn't it just typical of our Carolyn? You were always our little adventurer."  
  
Carolyn donned her tophat, flipping the inky tulle over her shoulder. "I just hope Hercules looks as absurd as I do." 

  
  
~*~

  
  
Arthur was plugging in the ropes of glowy skulls when he heard Martin and Douglas arrive.  
  
"No, I'm a  _dead_  pilot," Martin's voice carried through the vestibule. "See? I put on white makeup."  
  
"Wow, Skip!" Arthur greeted, trailing plastic remains. "I thought that was just your face."  
  
Douglas returned from the cloak room. He must have found it by the scary, pointing Frankenstein hand Arthur had drawn so they didn't have to pay someone to stand in a room of cloaks all night. And Mum thought a wedding in a vampire-people club would be expensive.  
  
"Have you gotten two new freckles on your neck, Martin?" Arthur said. "Only, I think my girlfriend has that shade of lipstick."  
  
"No!" Martin said. "See? I was bitten by a vampire! And now I'm one of the undead, I'm an undead pilot. I can't properly fly, of course, because of the sunlight, but there's a special kind of vampire --"  
  
"He gets it," Douglas said.   
  
"Sure I do," Arthur said. He didn't.  
  
"It's a perfectly acceptable costume. It's -- it's not silly. It's grownup. I did research."  
  
Arthur was going to ask what sort of research he watched, but he heard Mum clacking out of the back room in her big heels. She was even taller than Martin in them.   
  
"Arthur, did you plug in the minister? He's shouting again."  
  
"Yes, Mum. He just likes having a bit of a shout."  
  
"I see." She turned to vampire Douglas and his Martiny victim. "My, you two look like you fell out of a B movie," she said.   
  
"You are a vision, Carolyn." Douglas gave her a kiss, which looked really funny. Mum and Douglas kissing.   
  
"Thank you," Mum said. "You know, Douglas, I think you've got the look about right. You sleep during the day, sneak into virgin bedrooms at night, and you believe swanning about dropping dramatic one-liners amounts to a purpose in life."   
  
"I rather thought the smoldering seducer look suited me, don't you, Martin?"  
  
"Oh, lord," Martin said.  
  
"I suppose that makes Martin your victim. How romantic, in a bloody sort of way."   
  
Douglas laughed. Arthur sort of got the joke, so he laughed too.  _Twilight_  had been really funny.  
  
"What?" Martin said. "I don't get it."  
  
"Well, Martin, you read Dracula in school, didn't you?" Carolyn said while Douglas made little gestures behind Martin.  
  
"No, of course not. Isn't that sort of literature awfully, well, flowery? Why? Did I get it wrong?"  
  
Douglas wrapped Martin up in his arms and leaned into his ear. "She means that the big, strong vampire  _thrusting_  his fangs into the breathless virgin's throat is one, big, Victorian sexual metaphor."  
  
Martin turned paler than his makeup. "Oh, God! Is that what people are going to think? Carolyn, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to be inapp-app -- Douglas, why didn't you tell me?"  
  
As Douglas conducted Martin into the main room, Carolyn took Arthur aside. "Dear heart, why don't you locate Herc? He was looking for you."

 

 

 

  
~*~

  
  
Arthur cut through the kitchen, where the cake had just arrived. Mmm, green buttercream, strawberry filling, and a big licorice spider about to chop off the toppers' heads with its mouth-bits. Mum said no tasting or she'd break all his fingers with her magic wand. She was the bride, she was allowed magical powers today.   
  
Madeline stood at one of the worktops, adorable in a Harley Quinn unitard, filling little baskets with black-and-purple jelly babies. He came up behind her and kissed her neck.   
  
"How do I look?" He smoothed the lapels of his purple suit, pointing to his garish painted grin.  
  
She barely glanced at him. "Great. Can you help me? I completely forgot about this! Your mum wants these on the tables for each guest!"  
  
"Don't worry about it, you've already got like a hundred of them --"  
  
"Thirty three. She wanted at least forty. God, I'm such a scatter brain. What's she going to think when we tell her you got me preg--"  
  
"Mads." Arthur took her hand. She met his gaze. "It's not that important. Mum's thinking about loads of other things."  
  
She stared up at him, then took a deep breath and seemed to let out all the baddie feelings with it.   
  
"Yeah. Okay. I'm being crazy. This isn't even my wedding. I just, sort of, I don't know. I did so much, I want your mum to like it all. So she'll like me after I tell her that I completely and utterly ruined your life."  
  
He squeezed her. "Look, Herc wants to talk to me, but I'll be right back, okay?"  
  
She bit her lip and nodded.

  
~*~

  
Mitzie had been dispatched to wheel Mother to the front of the seating area. It was almost time.  
  
There wasn't a wedding party, save Arthur escorting her to the altar. Carolyn had decided it wasn't worth all that trouble and extra expense, the unnecessary engagement dinners and the arguments over other people's fancy clothing.   
  
So she had nothing to do but wait in what she charitably called the 'bride room,' or was regularly referred to as the manager's office. It wasn't traditional, leaving a bride alone, even one who'd been to the altar enough times to wear a tread. Not as often as Hercules had, that was something she could always hold over him. Sixty-five was different than nineteen, wasn't it? She didn't feel anxious, of course not; this was to be a twenty minute perfunctory ring ceremony followed by a raucous Halloween costume ball.   
  
Nothing at all had to change; Hercules was already practically living in her house when he wasn't flying. No matter that Arthur's girlfriend was pregnant so they'd be wanting their own space, and next year was to start Hercules' retirement, and she had no idea what to do with a husband who didn't go to work every day. She'd probably sell the house; it was too big for an old married couple.   
  
She curled her hair into obedience under the top hat. This getup was dear Madeline's idea, being the artistic girl she was, and Carolyn rather liked the look. She'd refused a veil at both her other weddings for the inherent sexist message -- wrapping up a bride like a gift to be given and owned -- but a top hat was another look entirely. It pulled together the Victorian-ish witchy costume she'd had tailored by some Gothic kinky dressmaker Madeline had found on the Internet.   
  
She wasn't slender, but she felt lush and feminine in the corset-styled bodice. The onyx beaded lavaliere teased all the way to her waist, and the sleeves flatteringly covered her not so flattering upper arms. Carolyn had cleavage she hadn't seen in a decade. Herc was going to go nonverbal. Wouldn't that be a trick.  
  
A light rap of knuckles at the door.   
  
"I hope you're all decent in there," Douglas said as he opened it.   
  
"'Us' is me," she said, turning in the folding chair.  
  
As he entered, the cape swooshed about him so he resembled a man at the opera a hundred years ago. She hated to admit it, but he was warming to the part.  
  
"My, my, Mrs. Shipwright, aren't you a sight of demonic beauty. You know what a tophat used to mean, don't you?"  
  
Carolyn accepted his kiss. "We all know who swings the biggest stick in our outfit, don't we? Did you come in here for a purpose?"  
  
Douglas hitched himself up on the desk. "Not really, just wanted to check if you'd gotten the jitters."  
  
"Me? Of course not."  
  
"What was I thinking?" He slid his hand into his pocket and produced a box. "Moving on, then. I know you said no presents, and I assure you, Martin and I went to no great effort. But I felt I wanted to mark the occasion. Call it a going away present to my best girl."  
  
She accepted the little box, astonished. Her family hadn't even bothered to send cards. "Douglas, you didn't have to."  
  
"I know I didn't, I wanted to. Just open it."  
  
She undid the plain white paper, careful of her manicure, to reveal a blue box. Jewelry? She removed the lid. Nestled in the blue tissue was a coin on a silver chain. She lifted it out and held it so it glittered in the light. Teardrops of jade decorated the chain.  
  
"Oh, a sixpence! How traditional."  
  
"You're supposed to put it in your shoe, but I didn't wish to curse the bride with blisters. It was Martin's idea to have it made into an anklet and the jeweler he found said that jade is lucky for weddings. Really, we just thought the color suited you."  
  
"Oh, how thoughtful, it's lovely. Thank you, Douglas, and tell Martin I said so."  
  
"If you look in there --"  
  
She looked in the box again. It wasn't empty! Oh, a pair of jade earrings, the same teardrops, obviously by the same jeweler. Something to wear for everyday.  
  
"It's not as if you'll wear the sixpence again," he was smiling at her obvious pleasure, "so we thought we'd throw in something practical."  
  
"I'm astonished by your thoughtfulness," she said.  
  
Carolyn crossed her legs to put it on her right ankle -- no, left, right? Left for love? She switched. A fission of memory tossed her fifteen years back to a garden party, a memory neither would admit to remembering. She wondered if they ever would, now that she was married off. What would be the point?  
  
She clipped the anklet 'round her ankle. It looked rather fetching there, a flash of sparkle and color under her violet underskirts.   
  
"I am capable of thoughtfulness," he said. "That coin happened to fall out of a vending machine in Tokyo on one of our first flights together."  
  
"You kept it?" she said.   
  
Douglas shrugged. "Call it an atheistic traveler's talisman. I forgot I had it, but it's been appraised -- it's a genuine 'something old.'"  
  
Tokyo, that was . . . their second job. Before Arthur dropped -- before they decided uni wasn't necessary for Arthur. The crew had consisted of Douglas, herself, and that chap she hired just for the job. They had bickered the whole trip out. That night in the karaoke bar, he confessed that the whole snafu with Air England had been, embarrassingly, all his fault.  
  
She wriggled her foot, enjoying the jingles. She was as bedecked as a Christmas tree under there, with striped stockings, ribbons, and a garter belt.   
  
"Do you expect you and Martin shall do one of these?" she waved a hand.  
  
"What, a Spiritualist revival occult ritual?" he chuckled.

She gave him a look -- _I know you, skyboy, don't wriggle out on_ me.

"I know what you mean. I honestly don't know. We're not thinking about the future."  
  
"But you _are_ silly in love."  
  
He tapped the box with a finger, nervous. "Yes. We are that. You don't know what it took to get me to admit it."  
  
She shook her head. "Try not to look like a condemned criminal, Sweeney. You're simply doomed to a happy ending."

  
~*~

  
"Ah, Arthur. A moment." Herc clicked a velvet box in his hands. "I wanted see these secure in your jacket pocket before the ceremony. In all the confusion, I already left them once in the gents'. If I lost them, I fear what your mother would do to me on a deserted beach in France with a jellyfish as a deadly weapon."  
  
Arthur took the ring box and tucked it away carefully. "Yeah-h, we watch David Attenborough."  
  
"Indeed."  
  
Arthur rocked on his heels. He liked Herc -- but they never had much to talk about.  
  
"So. How do I look?" Herc buttoned his jacket. It had lots of neat embroidery bits and tails. Arthur was really jealous of his one-eyed glasses hooked on his nipple-button, his really cool old fashioned pistol blasters, and his big military boots. Madeline's friend did his face up like a sorter dead soldier man and a little like a demon. He didn't look like any particular character, just dead and official and evil and old timey.  
  
"Really cool," Arthur said.  
  
"Thank you. You look properly deranged yourself."   
  
Arthur shrugged, unable to stop his grin. "You're just saying. I put it together myself."  
  
Together, they made their way through the spider web hall that led to the lobby. Arthur could hear the theme to the Disneyworld Haunted House ride as the minister requested people take their seats. He'd been a good sport about it, as a Unitarian, wearing scarlet frock and appearing crucified to a cardboard church door.   
  
"No, honestly," Herc said, "absolutely Arkham-fodder. You and Madeline look completely criminally insane."  
  
Arthur passed Herc his walking stick. "Thanks! She was worried people would notice -- er. Um."  
  
Herc glanced at him as he checked his cuff links. They were gold skulls. "Notice?"  
  
"Nothing! Just, um. She's put on a little weight. Just a little. It's about two centimeters long."   
  
Herc looked at the ceiling as he contemplated that. "She's concerned about putting on two centimeters? Arthur, what are you trying to tell me?"  
  
Arthur clapped a hand over his mouth. "Muh-fing!"  
  
Herc adjusted his glasses. "Right. Well. You might want to wait until later to let your mother in on the very tiny thing that is of very large importance, hmm?"  
  
Arthur could only squeak at that. His mouth was covered so no more stupid could fall out.

~*~

  
"What did you mean by 'going away gift'?" Carolyn asked. "Are you resigning from MJN?"  
  
Drinks had been delivered -- decaf tea for her, a soda for Douglas. She was half-heartedly noshing on a fruit plate, knowing by experience she should have something inside her when the little jets of stomach acid began cheerfully watering her stomach lining between the ordeal of the ceremony, the receiving line, and photos. Her appetite wasn't accepting the plan.   
  
"Certainly not," he said. "I'm not the one getting married."  
  
She held her tea. It smelled a bit off, like they kept the teabags too long in the tin. "You know, one could take that as a deeply old fashioned statement, relying on sexist and harmful assumptions that kept women out of employment for decades if not centuries."  
  
Douglas stole an orange spear. "Nonsense. It's perfectly natural for a family to reorganize itself after major life changes. People suddenly decide their jobs or homes don't fit their new lives. Most normal thing in the world. All a part of growing up, for Arthur."  
  
Carolyn stabbed a cube of cantaloupe. "I'm not leaving my own business, not when we're finally pulling a profit. I assume I still have two pilots." She threw the statement out to the mercy of the man opposite her.  
  
"Martin's never been happier, and a happy Martin is a happy me. Will you have a steward when Arthur's baby is born?" he asked.  
  
She pressed a napkin to her lips as the giggles hit her. "You knew?"  
  
"Martin said she's been turning down the wine during their girls' nights. Didn't take the world's _leading consulting_ _detective_  to suss out why."  
  
"What do they do on their nights out, anyway?"  
  
"Oh, God knows. Watch movies, braid each others' hair. Gossip about more qualifying pilots. I honestly don't want to know."  
  
Carolyn smirked at him. His affectionate irritation suggested Martin was holding his own at home, moreso than on the flight deck.

"Don't tell Arthur you know about my impending grandchild," she said, "he's very proud of keeping a secret for longer than it takes him to ruin a micro meal. That girl's been a remarkable improvement to his character."  
  
Douglas sat back in his chair and watched her reapply her lip gloss. She dabbed at the corners of her mouth, then dropped it back into her makeup bag. She picked up all the other little bottles and compacts, replacing them carefully, and zipped up the bag.   
  
"What?" she said.   
  
"Nothing," he said. "You just look very content."  
  
"Why wouldn't I be?"  
  
Douglas didn't look keen to answer, but the door opened to admit an eager, purple madman.   
  
"Minister said for me to come get you, Mum."  
  
She stared at her son's open, cheerful expression. She couldn't move. Her legs wouldn't work. Her bottom was utterly fused to the seat of the greasy manager's desk chair. Douglas came 'round the desk. They stood at the door and waiting for something to happen, something she was supposed to be doing.

 _Last chance_.  
  
"You look really pretty," Arthur said.   
  
Douglas handed her her bouquet of white roses.   
  
"Thank you, dear." Carolyn pushed herself up onto her heels.   
  
She took Arthur's arm as the organ music began to swell. He gave it a squeeze and they crossed the lobby. Douglas disappeared to find the seat Martin saved for him. She could just faintly see the top of Herc's head. Her heart began to pound.  
  
She got married.

  
~*~

  
The bugs unleashed their attack when the sun went down, so Mitzie went around the patio with a taper and lit the smoky tiki torches and the buckets of citronella candles. Suicidal moths flew to both and Madeline tried to save them. Herc and Douglas bickered over who was man enough to master the fire pit, until Martin sighed and did it himself. He quietly built up a small pyre, blasted it with fuel when no one was looking, and had to apologize to all concerned when he illuminated the courtyard with a festive fireball. Douglas gently pressed a plastic cup of ice to his ankles, shaking his head, muttering, _what am I going to do with you_?  
  
"Now there's a couple in sync with one another," Carolyn said to Herc.   
  
"To say nothing of those two," Herc nodded in the direction Arthur and Madeline. They sat atop one another in the hammock swing, twirling like gibbons.   
  
Arthur had driven Mother back to the assisted living home hours ago. She'd done pretty well for an eighty six year old. She'd come in her flowered dress, carrying a straw broom from her own patio and an enormous witch's hat. Mother complimented the wedding as "creative" and pronounced Herc "an utter charmer." She absolutely terrified Martin, but Douglas found her sadistic fish stories hilarious. She really was mellowing in her old age, now that Dad was gone.   
  
The club proper had been open to the public at eight -- they didn't have the funds to rent it for the whole night -- and some guests remained inside. No one had planned a patio private party of friends, family, and the people Carolyn had somehow come to think of as family. The manager graciously [turned down the outside speakers](http://youtu.be/Rfp0SOo2_8E) to a chatty level. The best after-parties always happened spontaneously.  
  
Carolyn leaned into Herc, so warm and smelling lovely. She had had, perhaps, a bit too much champagne. Her nose was itchy and one stocking had come undone so she'd re-tied it around her ankle in the loo because it was too late to fix up the foundation layers. Herc was idly playing with the satin ribbon -- they were sitting in a glider and she'd curled her knees in his lap. Definitely unseemly, probably anti-feminist, given her getup, and she'd burn any pictures that turn up later displaying any foolishness whatever. But did it feel good to know that she could walk down the aisle at sixty-five and feel as terrified as at nineteen.  
  
It was a terrible cliche, but she had held onto Hercules' hands through the entire ring ceremony lest she be sucked into an abyss. Not because she was so in love, although she did love him with a fierceness she had never thought love could be. She was scared because for the first time in her life, she felt safe. Hercules knew her worst and her best and that person was who he wanted. And she was so, so grateful -- and so, so afraid of losing him.  
  
The whole event was making her feel wild with attraction towards the man. She certainly hadn't been expecting a cliche honeymoon, but the minute they got off the train in Cote de Azure . . .  
  
She felt his index finger along her cheek, teasing with a cool touch, down her throat. "Lost in thought, my dear?"  
  
She leaned closer and kissed him. "Just content. A little extremely tired."  
  
He slid one arm across her shoulders, soothing down her back, the other coming round to link his fingers together. His arms were warm and strong, but not too tight. "I think the evening is having its last. We should probably say something."  
  
Carolyn nodded. "I'll do it."  
  
"Of course, my eloquent bride."  
  
She smiled and kissed him 'goodbye' before finding a spot by the fire. It didn't smell so much like an exploded diesel carrier any longer. She clinked her new ring against her glass. The chatter quieted, the kids stopped spinning, Mitzie and her husband stepped closer, and her pilots stopped giggling in the corner.  
  
"I'd like to propose a toast," Carolyn said, "to all our friends. I thank you for coming and for the wonderful efforts you put in on your horrifying costumes. You all look revolting and if I met you on the street I'd promptly run the other way." Laughter. "You're lovely, all of you. Herc and I are very grateful. We want especially to thank our son Arthur. When our original venue fell through at the last minute, and this was the only place available at short notice and only on Halloween, I perhaps had a bit of a fit and almost called the whole wedding off. But trust my son to turn a misfortune into an advantage."  
  
There were returns of, "Here, here" and "Well done, Arthur!" Her son blushed, and Madeline planted a kiss on his cheek.  
  
She continued, "Arthur, you have been the light of my life. You have  _saved_  my life. I don't know who or what sort of person I would have become without you. To put a fine point on it: I am so, so proud of you."  
  
A chorus of "aww"s. She almost couldn't look at Arthur. When she peeked, he was grinning at her with big, shiny eyes. He climbed awkwardly out of the swing and crossed the patio to meet her.  
  
"Gosh, Mum." She allowed herself one of his hugs, dabbing her eyes behind his shoulder.   
  
"All right, then." She patted at his arms and cleared her throat. She realized he was hiding his eyes, too. To the group, she said, "So! As I was saying! Thank you for coming and -- and please finish the cream cheese rangoons, they won't keep."  
  
After the applause died down, and Carolyn returned to the glider, Arthur remained standing by the fire pit.  
  
"Hoy, Arthur, want to throw a log on?" Martin called.  
  
"Oh, sure, Skip," Arthur said. "Just, I wanted to say thanks for coming."  
  
"Arthur, dear, you already gave your toast," Carolyn said, wincing. It had involved a band of shrieking choreographed zombies.  
  
"No, no, I just wanted, um." Arthur held up his empty glass. "Well, this is just great! Everyone here, and, um." He glanced at Madeline. Her smile flickered on, but her eyes were scared. Her hand drifted over her stomach. "So, I just wanted to say, I'm so glad we're all a family now -- me and Mum and Herc and Mads and soon the baby!"  
  
There was a silence. Madeline looked at Arthur. Douglas and Martin looked at Carolyn. Carolyn looked at her new husband, who looked at the ground and covered his quirking lips. Mitzie was the first one to speak.  
  
"Is Arthur having a baby?" Mitzie's husband discreetly moved her wine glass to the other side of the table.  
  
"So thanks! And cheers!" Arthur pretended to drink out of his empty glass.   
  
More quiet. Carolyn realized they were waiting for her cue, but she was afraid of saying anything. It was one thing to strongly suspect, another to know. And be expected to react gracefully in front of all their friends after countless cups of Dracula's Kiss Punch.  
  
"Well!" Douglas said. "Shall we all say congratulations to the new parents?"  
  
Martin dropped his plate of cheese rangoons and led the brigade of cheerful, slightly dopey, back-patting party remainers. Someone fetched Madeline a cup of tea, she really needed some warming up in her condition, doesn't she look aglow? Carolyn hipped her skirts through the small congregation to Arthur's side.  
  
"Sorry, Mum. I know it's a bit sudden."   
  
She pulled him to her.   
  
"Don't be silly, dear heart. I'm -- well, it's a bit -- well, it's a good thing, isn't it. I was waiting for you to tell me."  
  
"Wow. You really know everything, don't you?"  
  
"No, Arthur. I really do not." Carolyn smoothed his fringe back. Poor dear was thinning up there, starting to get back the hairline he had at six months old. He was going to look like her father at fifty. "Do you -- now, your mother isn't interfering, dear, but have you made any plans?"  
  
"Oh. I -- I guess Herc has had enough of babies."  
  
"I don't know either way," she said. "In our many talks about the future, for some funny reason, we never discussed bringing home a baby."  
  
Arthur fidgeted with his tie. "Oh, right. Well, we thought, Madeline has her teaching certificate, and there's schools everywhere."  
  
Carolyn nodded. "Certainly there are. Schools in London, schools in Fitton, and schools in between."  
  
"Right. But, we thought, schools in Fitton, or close to Fitton, is probably best, right? I mean, just for us, not saying anything for anyone else."  
  
She gave his arm a squeeze. "I see. Yes, that does sound like quite a plan."  
  
"Yeah?" he said. He suddenly clung to her shoulder. "And you'd, you know, be there? Anytime I called? Mum, Mads thinks I'm, like, a grownup. A dad! Mum, what the hell do I know about babies? What if I forget it in an airport really far away and we can't go and fetch it! What if I accidentally invent fizzy breast milk!"  
  
The former was probably impossible, she thought.   
  
"Arthur, darling, unclench. You will be fine. What did I know? What does anyone? You will live and learn, just like we all did."  
  
He hopped from one foot to the other. "But you'll be there? To tell me when I'm doing something stupid?"  
  
She squeezed his hands. "No, Arthur. I'll babysit and I'll pop 'round when Madeline needs a break. But you won't need to come running to me over every case of colic. I promise. Now go find your -- your partner, I suppose we'll be telling the neighbors."

Arthur floated off on dreamy feet into the circle of drunken friends. Mitzie was loudly planning a tiny, crocheted wardrobe.  
  
Herc appeared beside her. "So how long are they going to live with us?"  
  
"Oh, a year at least," she said.  
  
Herc wrapped his arms around her waist. She was glad she left on the heels so she could almost look him in the eye.   
  
"Ready, then, Mrs. Shipwright?" he said. "I still have to pack."  
  
She frowned, well aware it looked like more of a pout. "I told you to pack this morning."  
  
"Mmm," he purred. "I don't --" kiss " -- always --" kiss " -- do what --" kiss "-- I'm told. But I have reason to believe that the outcome --" A long, toe-curling kiss that made her very aware of the stocking still tight against one upper thigh. "-- is always pleasurable to both parties. Don't you trust me?"  
  
She met his eyes. A crackle of -- something -- went down her spine. Anxiety? Desire?   
  
"Yes. I do."


End file.
